


Thy Fate It Was

by Kadorienne



Series: Fate [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Loki’s Resistance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadorienne/pseuds/Kadorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“With the Gauntlet I can grant him a new life. He will forget all he has been and all he has done. He will grow up again, not as the spoiled favorite son of an all-powerful tyrant, but as a common man, a mortal, prone to the struggles and woes of all. He will not have a magic weapon that makes him all but invulnerable; he will be subject to the same dangers as all, and thus can learn sympathy for those who must fear. And one day I may even give his power back to him, if he can learn to use it to protect instead of to oppress.”</p><p><i>Nought hast thou won, | for thy fate it was</i><br/><i>Brave men to bring | to the battle-field.</i><br/>~Helgakviða Hundingsbana II</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thy Fate It Was

**Author's Note:**

> A weak man knows the value of strength.

 

Luke was the best friend Donald Blake had ever had.

They saw each other several times in his physical therapist’s waiting room before speaking beyond casual hellos or innocuous remarks about the weather.

Then one day Luke sat beside him and asked, “Are you interested in astrophysics, or just in beautiful astrophysicists?” His tone was gently teasing, his accent British. 

Donald looked up from his book - the newest biography of Jane Foster.

“The latter more than the former,” Donald admitted. “I don’t know much about astronomy or physics, but I had such a crush on Jane Foster when I was a teenager.”

“Oh?”

“I was thirteen when the SHIELD scandal was in the news. You must remember that, you look like you’re about the same age as me. I saw her testifying about how they seized her research and equipment and even her friend’s iPod and only returned it when that Avenger, the alien one, forced them to. I think she was in her mid-forties during the hearings, but she was still beautiful. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And of course when they found out how gorgeous she was when she was young, they kept running old photos of her.” Donald opened the book to the photos printed in the middle and held it up. “There she is, my first pinup girl. Beautiful _and_ brilliant.”

“But she didn’t inspire you to study her subjects?”

“No. I had already decided I was going to be a doctor.” Donald nodded at his bad leg. “I was hoping I could find a cure for my congenital dystrophy.”

“So you’re in medical research?”

“No. I’m an ER surgeon. By the time I was in college, I knew I didn’t have that degree of intellect. I won’t discover anything. But being a hands-on doctor is useful even if you don’t make any revolutionary discoveries. I can’t heal myself, as physicians are always admonished to do, but I can heal others.”

That was the first time Luke had fixed Donald with the laser-focused gaze which was to become very familiar. Like he was trying to read Donald’s mind - no, his soul.

“You care about helping others?”

“Of course.”

Luke’s expression suggested that he did not consider this to be a given, but he did not pursue that line of discussion just then. Instead he asked carefully, “Your limp was not caused by an injury?”

“No. Born with it. Some of the muscles just never developed properly. When I was a boy I hated that I couldn’t run or play sports or do a lot of the things other kids did. Still do, really. I love to hike, but I have to go slowly and choose terrain that isn’t too rough, and not many hikers care to limit themselves like that, so I usually have to hike alone.”

Luke looked thoughtful. “I think that sounds pleasant. I don’t spend enough time outside, and my injuries also require that I take care.”

They went hiking together in a national park that very weekend, and after that it became something they did a few times each month, when both their schedules permitted. On their leisurely walks, they talked about everything under the sun. What they thought of the things that went on in the world, what they believed was right and wrong. Donald told Luke all about his own life, growing up with a limp that limited him always, medical school, his practice in the ER. Luke was interested in everything about him, it seemed. 

Donald asked Luke about his own life at times, but Luke’s answers were evasive at best. Donald gathered he had painful memories. His sardonic sense of humor and his general cynicism about life in general supported this.

Donald never pressed his questions too hard. He made it a game with himself, trying to deduce Luke’s past from what little he let drop.

“So did your problems come from an injury?” he asked once as he and Luke carefully negotiated an uneven patch on the hiking trail, both having recourse to the canes they were never without. “You move like you used to be athletic.” Luke’s movements were fluid in between coming up against joints that simply didn’t want to do their jobs anymore. It gave him an odd gait, flowing elegantly and then jerking to a halt.

“Very perceptive of you.”

“Car accident?”

Several seconds passed before Luke answered. “No. Several years ago, I was kidnapped. My captor inflicted injuries on me to force me to help him commit a crime.”

Donald stopped, right there on the trail, and stared at his friend. “Wait, you were tortured?”

Green eyes fixed on him, watchful. “Yes.”

“That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

Luke’s gaze was unnerving in its intensity. Eventually Donald had to say something to ease the moment.

“So what did you do?”

“I pretended to cooperate, and then sabotaged his crime.” 

“Good for you! You’re a second Tony Stark!”

The corner of Luke’s mouth twisted. “I went to prison for it just the same.”

“Didn’t they make any allowances for the extenuating circumstances at your trial?”

At that, Luke only laughed - bitterly, harshly. An unhappy bark of sound Donald heard from him too often. “There was no trial.”

“How could you be sent to prison without a-”

There Donald stopped as the pieces fell into place. Luke must be a government agent of some kind. The enemy had captured him, like what happened to Tony Stark, and he had done his best to prevent whatever they wanted him to do, but agencies like the CIA or SHIELD didn’t have to answer to normal laws. They could lock people up without due process, they did it all the time. Hell, they had done it to Tony Stark himself once. When SHIELD was finally shut down a few years ago due to public outrage at their repeated civil and human rights violations, Donald had avidly read every article. And not only in hopes of seeing more photos of Dr. Jane Foster.

Donald would bet it was SHIELD. It was the kind of thing they would have done. He could see how it had gone. Luke had been an agent working for them - it suited him, his unnaturally alert eyes, the odd mix of confidence and wariness in his movements - and when he had needed their help, instead they had punished him for the crimes of others.

“How did you get out? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Another bitter smile. “I was locked up there until they had use of me.”

“They did that to you and then expected you to help them?”

Luke glanced sharply at him. “Yes.”

“What a bunch of assholes. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Luke’s uncanny green eyes did not waver from him, even as he laughed. Donald didn’t see what was funny about this, not even in a grim way, but if laughing at his own ordeal was how Luke coped, he wouldn’t argue.

They resumed walking. The leisurely pace their bodies forced upon them at least had the benefit of allowing them to fully enjoy the forest scenery, the warm breezes and the occasional bit of birdsong.

They walked in comfortable silence, the kind only possible between true friends, until Luke spoke again. “How’s work?” 

Donald’s spirits drooped immediately. At Luke’s prompt look of concern, he shook his head, trying to dismiss the moment of gloom. “Yesterday I had to patch up three different assault victims. One of them was mugged, he didn’t resist the robbery but the culprit broke his nose and fractured two of his ribs anyway, just for the hell of it. I don’t see how people can be so destructive.”

The corner of Luke’s mouth twisted. “Have you considered transferring out of the ER? It would be less stressful.”

“No.” Donald’s answer was prompt. “It’s upsetting sometimes, the things I see that people do to each other, but it’s what I want to do.”

“Help strangers?”

“Help people.”

Luke was looking at him the way he sometimes did.  He seemed surprised every time Donald showed the slightest concern for other people. Donald wondered what kind of people Luke had known in the past, that the least decency could surprise him that much.

“My leg always frustrated me when I was a kid. I wanted to run around, to play sports. I always loved the outdoors.” He tilted his head back to look at the sky through the canopy of trees. “But if I had been able to do those things, maybe I wouldn’t be the person I am. If I hadn’t been always constrained, always in at least mild pain, maybe I wouldn’t be able to empathize with those who suffer much worse than I do. Maybe I’d have wasted my life on selfish enjoyment.”

Luke nodded, thoughtful. Donald always felt that Luke did not say more than a tiny bit of what he thought.

“Suppose a god appeared to you before you were born,” Luke said now, “and told you that this was indeed the case. That were you born with two fully functioning legs, you would be a bully and a hedonist, harming those around you and thoroughly enjoying your life. Would you have chosen to live with your disability, that you might be a better man?”

“Of course.” Luke asked silly questions sometimes.

Luke smiled now, as if at some rueful private joke, and they were silent for a time again. 

“I always wanted a brother,” Donald said abruptly, surprising both of them.

Luke’s face had gone very rigid. Donald could see the movement of his throat swallowing before he asked. “Why is that?” 

“I felt… lonely. Somehow,  I felt that a brother was what was missing.”

“And what would you have done had you had one?”

“Protected him. Taught him what I knew. Shared with him.” Donald felt a twist of sadness, sadness he had long forgotten, from a childhood of missing something he had never known. But he looked at his friend, whose tense jaw and pallid face spoke of painful memories awakened. “I think I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean to.”

“No, I am… very glad to hear you say these things.” He hesitated. “I had a brother once,” he said at last. “He did none of those things.”

“I envy him for that lost chance.”

Luke stopped, there on the path, and held Donald’s gaze. “You are a good man, Donald Blake.”

Donald was embarrassed, but made himself hold Luke’s gaze. “So are you, Luke Lafayette.”

As he’d hoped, Luke gave a small chuckle at that, and they resumed their walk. A few minutes later, Luke pointed. “I haven’t noticed that cave before, have you?”

Donald looked. “No, I could have sworn it wasn’t there.”

“You up for exploring it?”

“Of course. Here, I’ll get up on this ledge” - Donald maneuvered himself, with the help of his cane, onto the higher ground, his bad leg grudgingly doing its part - “and give you a hand.”

They climbed the hill slowly, using branches as handholds, taking turns leaning on each other’s arms, and soon were at the mouth of the cave. Donald only had to stoop slightly to enter it. Luke let him go first.

Inside, Donald paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. After a moment, he could make out an object on the cave’s floor.

Someone had left a huge stone hammer in this cave! One with beautiful carving that made Donald’s heart race, and a short sturdy handle.

Luke was standing at the cave’s mouth, watching him. He really was lucky to have a friend like Luke. He had been too shy to say it before, but maybe someday he could tell Luke that he was like the brother he had always wished to have.

Just now, with a feeling of great familiarity, he stretched his hand towards the hammer’s shaft.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a brilliant comment at http://archiveofourown.org/comments/5278845 from Iron_Dragon_Maiden. Thank you for the plotbunny!


End file.
